Over there... just over there... far away... there's a village atop happiness hormone-secreting Turabdin. Though we might never visit it, that village belongs to us...
Abandoned for 7 years during the upheaval of the 1990's, it was reconstructed and revived by the elderly MALKE ERGÜN and his brother Lahdo Ergün, who passed away in 2002. Today, it is known as Derkube (Karagöl) village in Mardin-Midyat.
From past to present, the elderly Malke has lived in this village where he was born and raised. With his solemn bearing and venerable hoariness, he reposes against the historical contours of the village and the historic Church of Mor Jacob in the silence and witness of a secluded cranny...
We visited old Malke with my mother and wife due to his illness. We wished him a speedy recovery. We were very glad to find him in good condition and getting better. He cheered us up with his conversation. We harkened back to the old days. We brushed up and revived some common memories. We were in communion.
From the highlights of our sincere discussion, I once again understood that the spirit becomes more beautiful, illuminated, and strengthened through renewal. Therefore, the spiritual and mental world should continually renew itself through new meanings and benignant information. This is only possible through correctly managing ourselves and the energy flowing inside us. When we mobilize our spiritual energy in accordance with a purpose and meaning, we must make sure that the pain of arrows striking our heart will subside more readily. For if we do not convert our spiritual energy into a positive while those arrows are in our hearts, we will wear out and break down. We will fall. We will lose. We will end up distraught and miserable.
Generally, people who have lived under hard and difficult circumstances undergo changes in the way they speak, in their hold on life, in their bearing. With their experience of being attuned to life wisdom, they evaluate with the knowledge that some things can break down or recuperate with a single touch. But by no means do they wish to break or destroy. Life, with its good and bad, has been unable to alter their thoughts, emotions, and senses. What remains in their wake is the living witness of life experience and emotion. They become acquainted with their scars and transcend them...
On 10 October 2021, a beautiful Sunday morning in autumn, old Malke Ergün, who we are visiting in his own village and house, evokes the feeling that he is thinking of Derkube's future like an envoy of silent experiences distilled from suffering as he speaks of his afflictions... As he points at a picture of his late father in the sitting room... As he contemplates new possibilities....
Because when a possibility arises, a hopeless person begins to breathe again, live again. Famous Danish philosopher Soren Kierkegaard (1813-1855) says that a human being can virtually suffocate without possibility. He adds, "A person of faith has an eternally dependable antidote against hopelessness. And that is possibility. For anything is possible for God. This is the truth of faith wherein all contradictions are resolved."
As is known, the security provided by material wealth to the perceptive world is bound to cultural wealth. No matter how tall the mountain of material things/carnality/selfishness is, the path of culture spans them. In order to know, manage, and develop oneself on this path, close relationships must be maintained with troubled old people who come from hard life experiences and cry out with their own voice, weep with their own tears, see with their own eyes, think with their own thoughts, and implore with their own prayers. Ways of benefiting from them must be sought.
Polish author and one of the world's famous sociologists Zygmunt Bauman (1925-2017) writes, "All other values are values to the extent that they serve human self-esteem and uphold its cause. A person that tries to survive by killing the humanity in others, must have survived the death of his own humanity."
In that case, we humans ought to be worthy of the existence we have been given. Let it be known that those who lack this qualification are under a persistent illusion. In order to be worthy of existence, we have to apperceive our mortality by being at peace with our scars and pains... By discovering the light that spills from that peace... By opening ourselves to the rhythm of life...
We must know that the past will continue to stay there, but we can build our tomorrows in new ways with the things the past teaches us. However, this is not feasible unless we lay claim to our sincere awareness and increase it.
Malfono Yusuf Beğtaş
President of the Syriac Association of Language, Culture and Literature
Süryani Dili-Kültürü ve Edebiyatı Derneği Başkanı / Mardin
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